Weezer’s new album, Raditude came out today, ranking here amongst weezer albums:
1. Blue Album (94)
2. Pinkerton (96)
3. Maladroit (02)
4. Red Album (08)
5. Raditude (09)
6. Green Album (01)
7. Make Believe (05)
Given that Weezer will never be back to their pre-millenium awesomeness of Blue Album and Pinkerton (the Matt Sharp days), Raditude is a solid middle-of-the-road “modern” Weezer album. The album is full of growing pains from front man Rivers Cuomo trying to hold on to a crowd he has not been a part of for 20 years… teenagers. The album has songs of bashful romance and being at the mall that seem to be force-written, and then songs like I’m Your Daddy and The Girl Got Hot that remind me of the just-having-fun Weezer that hit the ground running last year with the Red Album.
Then there are songs like ‘Love Is the Answer’ that literally make me want to stab myself in the ear-drum. This album seems to take the worst traits of Make Believe (emotional bullshit) and mask them with the good traits of Red Album (the exact opposite: catchy fun-ness).
Being all over the radar, though, is not a new thing for Weezer. They came back from hiatus in 2001 with an over-produced Green Album. The band followed up with the cult-hit Maladroit, which brought the band back to simple garage rock, and then almost ended their careers with the sappy felt Make Believe. The band found redemption last year with the ultra-catchy Red Album, and I find Raditude to be right in the middle: A few cringes, a lot of catchy riffs and you can’t hate it because you know the band had fun making it.
Check out the band here on a recent Late Show with David Letterman to see for yourself.
As this is my first album review in many years, I do not have a catchy-grading system, just the tried and true one: Raditude, C+
